


Who Are You?

by IWriteWorksNotTragedies



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-23 20:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10726308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IWriteWorksNotTragedies/pseuds/IWriteWorksNotTragedies
Summary: Two years, two years too long, but had his glimmer of hope been blocked by reality?





	1. Prologue

He woke up in a cold sweat, like he did every night he dreamed about her. It always ended in the same way, her disappearing into thin air, leaving him just standing there, disappointed for yet another night. It wasn’t right, why did she have to vanish, just like that; he barely got a goodbye. It left him hiding his pain around everyone, most people were oblivious, except for his sister and his friends. It’s like it broke him, like everything around him just shattered.

For the most part after his dreams he just shook it off, tried to bury it down with the rest of the sadness guilt and hopelessness. But some dreams shook him up for the rest of the day; his friends could tell when he was having those days, he would just zone out at times, and he wouldn’t talk much. They usually tried to give him his space, time to think, he already had too much time to think. Some days it was too much, he didn’t feel like getting out of bed, just to fake a sense of normalcy and go back to bed, just to repeat the process the next day, and next and so forth; but he did because it’s what she would’ve wanted, she gave up her chance of a normal life, for his chance at one at all.

That day was one of the worst ones yet, he was so shaken up that he needed someone to talk to, just to get everything off his chest. So that day at school he decided to tell Lucas; he may have been the harshest person out of the group, be was also the realist, and maybe he had good advice on how to try and cope.

“Eight months, _eight fucking months_ ” Mike said bitterly “It’s been too damn long, don’t you think she’d be here by now if she was going to come back at all.”

“Wow, this dream really did shake you up, usually you’re all optimistic about her returning.” Lucas said truthfully, he wasn’t used to Mike swearing, but it started happening right after she was gone.

“I just, I don’t know man, what to do, if I give up, I feel like I given up on any possibility that she’d ever return, like it’d never happen. But if I keep trying to believe that she’d come back, I don’t know if I’d ever be able to move on in life. And I don’t know what would be more of a disappointment to her, if I stopped waiting for her to come back, or if I wasted her sacrifice just waiting here, stuck at a standstill in life, waiting for something that might never happen.” Mike poured out, finally allowing himself to breathe.

“Why can’t you wait for her and move on?” Lucas asked, just judging by the shocked look on mike’s face, that was not the answer he was expecting. “Why not live life, _enjoy life_ , but still be there if she comes back. Even if it’s just for the next four or five years I think staying in Hawkins won’t be that hard. Therefore, once you go to college, you won’t feel like you’ve abandoned her, but you stayed, just in case she came back, and if she does, you know that you waited long enough that you could save her. Life isn’t always so black and white Mike, sometimes you just have to look harder for the gray.”

Mike pondered over his friend’s advice throughout the day, trying to find flaws in his plan, but he couldn’t; there was no logical reason he couldn’t wait for her and enjoy life in the process.

Yeah, he’d do that, he’d live.


	2. Who Are You?

Two years, two years on the day, two years since she vanished, two years since he got his best friend back, but lost another. Maybe she wasn’t a friend, maybe she was a little more, but none of that mattered now, because she was standing right there in front of him.

Mike woke up that morning already dreading the day, that day was just another reminder to what happened. Lucas’s plan had been going pretty well so far, he went back to making campaigns, and hanging out with his friends again. He moved on to high school, and is the best in his class. He still had bad days, but instead of ignoring his friends, he turned to them for support. But there was one day, _one day in particular,_ that he still couldn’t enjoy, that he couldn’t bear through: _The day she disappeared_.

Last year he called in sick; for the most part he was faking it, but part of him actually felt sick, part of him made him want to throw up, and just stay in bed, that part of him was the part that still wants to wait and do nothing, the part of him that can’t move on without her, the part he tried to get rid of a year and a half ago.

But this year he decided that he was going to get up, that he was going to go to school, because she would want him to, because she didn’t vanish just for him to lie in bed. So he got up, he went to school, and he met his friends near the lockers.

“Are you sure you’re ok doing this? It’s ok for you to stay at home.” Will said once Mike walked up

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine.” Mike said reassuringly

The rest of school went on basically like normal, he had tuned out more than usual, but for the most part, Mike was fine. But on the way out home, he started to breakdown, his exterior was breaking, he became that person from a year and a half ago, all because he saw that damn school.             

It’d started raining at the end of fifth period, and hadn’t stopped, so he had to the road to get home instead of the woods. But on that route, there was his middle school, the school where she disappeared, and now she’s gone. All the memories from that night began to flash through his mind, the bath, the kiss, the running, the Demogorgon, _the vanishing_. He stopped focusing on the road, crashed his bike into a parked car, and was knocked unconscious, at least for a few seconds.

When he came to, he was lying on the sidewalk, with his bike next to him. When he tried to get up, he felt a great pain in his right arm, he lifted it to look at it, it was broken, he couldn’t move his fingers.

“Shit!” Mike yelled in pain

He looked up, and found a man standing over him, suddenly he recognized that man.

“Mr. Clark?” Mike asked, wincing

“What happened? I walked out of the school to find you crashed into my car.” Mr. Clark said with worry.

“I, I stopped paying attention to the road. I think my arm is broken.” Mike said in pain

“Well, I’ll get you to the hospital and call your parents.” Mr. Clark said lifting Mike up.

Once he got Mike into the car, he put the broken bike into the trunk, and drove to the hospital. When he got there, he ran inside and asked for someone to take Mike into the Emergency Room, and to call his mom.

When Mike’s family got there, they rushed went to the front desk, and went to Mike’s room.

“Oh my gosh, what happened?” Karen asked frantically

“The water got into my eyes near the middle school and I crashed into a car-” Mike lied

“A car!?” Karen exclaimed in horror

“ _A parked car_.” Mike finished

The nurse walked in

“He has two fractures in his arm, but other than that he’s ok, just a couple of bruises, and a gash on his forehead. All we need to do is put his arm in a cast in he should be fine in around three months.” The nurse reported

“Thank God.” Karen said

Nancy was pondering the whole ordeal, she wasn’t sure Mike just got water in his eyes, just the date and the place was too convenient.

A few hours later the put Mike’s arm in a cast and he was good to go. They walked into the waiting room, and were almost out the door when something caught Mike’s eye. A girl with short hair in a tattered, pink dress. He froze.

“El, Eleven?” He said quietly

The girl turned around to reveal it was Eleven.

He rushed over to her.

“El!” Mike exclaimed

“Wh- Who are you?” Eleven whispered


	3. Why?

_Who_

Mike suddenly couldn’t feel; his mind was being overwhelmed by emotions: Worry, shock, grief, immense joy followed by immense disappointment. He was numb, numb to feeling, to emotion, he barely noticed that he had started to cry. He hadn’t been whole for two years, but at least some of him was there, now there’s nothing, he’s empty.

_Are_

Why? What could’ve happened that made the most important person in his life forget him. She had to know him, right? It’s El. No, he looked into her eyes, she looked like she was looking at a complete stranger. Mike Wheeler, a complete stranger to El, it was like the whole week never happened.

_You?_

He didn’t know what to do, there wasn’t anything to do. The plan he had had for two years had been thrown out of the window. He didn’t expect for El not to remember him. Time was moving in slow motion, almost at a stop, waiting for him to figure out what he was going to do.

“Michael!” Karen called back, noticing that her son had stopped.

“Do you know this girl?” Asked the nurse that had walked her in

“Uh, yeah.” Mike answered, coming back to reality. “What’s wrong?” Mike asked

“Police found her near the edge of the woods, brought her here. I think it would help if you told us some words, or key phrases, just to see if she remembers anything.” The nurse asked

“Oh, ok, um. Mike, Will, Papa, Eleven, Eggos, Upside Down, bath, _snowball_.” Mike responded, nearly choking on that last word.

“Thanks, you can wait out here if you’d like.” The nurse said, leaving and bringing El into a hospital room.

“Who was that?” Karen asked

“Oh, it’s just a girl that used to go to my school.” Mike responded

“Do you want to wait for her?” Karen asked

“Yeah.” Mike responded

After two hours of Mike wading in his own thoughts, the nurse came back out into the waiting room.

“She only responds to the words: Papa, Eleven and bath. How well did you know her?” The nurse asked Mike

“I only knew her for a week, then she disappeared.” Mike responded grimly

“Do you know what happened to her?” The nurse asked

“No.” Mike said

“Does she have a bad childhood, or anything she said?” The nurse asked

“Yeah, her family was cruel, and gave her that tattoo on her wrist.” Mike answered

“Ah yes, the number Eleven, was that a nickname?” The nurse asked again

“No, that was her name, Eleven. I called her El for short.” Mike answered, bringing back the warm memory.

“She seems to have retrograde amnesia; the most probable cause is a traumatic event. She could forget from any point in her life, from a day, to a year. It seems she has only forgotten the week she knew you. We still don’t know how long, or what it will take for her to remember, But she should. We will release her into the care of the police. Thank you.” Said the nurse

What a fucking day for Hopper to be out of town.


End file.
